Poker's Best Will Lay Down Five Stacks of High Society for Shot at One of the Game's Most Prestigious Titles
Since 2006, the World Series of Poker has hosted a $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship. For four years, the tournament featured a H.O.R.S.E. format and was designed to test players on their all-around abilities. The first-ever winner was David “Chip” Reese, who some believe is the best player of all time. While Reese passed away in 2007, his legacy lives on with the David “Chip” Reese Trophy, which is awarded to the winner of this event
Freddy Deeb, Scotty Nguyen and David Bach were all recipients of that trophy in 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively. Then, in 2010, the event was improved to an 8-Game Mix format, adding No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-limit Omaha, and 2-7 Triple Draw to the rotation and thus testing players’ talents in even more variants. It was also that year that the final table was switched to strictly no limit hold’em to make the television broadcast more appealing to viewers.
That year, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi laid claim to the title to win his first WSOP bracelet. Last year, Brian Rast defeated a stacked final table that included Ben Lamb, Scott Seiver, Matt Glantz, Owais Ahmed and Phil Hellmuth. In a particularly amusing heads-up battle with Hellmuth, Rast managed to deny the then 11-time bracelet winner his 12th bracelet for the third time that series and capture the $1,720.328 first-place prize.
Unfortunately, this year’s tournament will not be recorded for broadcast on ESPN, which means numbers may be down from last year’s field of 128; in fact, we expect they’ll be more on par with 2009’s 95 entrants, another year where television coverage was not provided. Another consequence, for better or worse, of no television coverage is that the final table will remain 8-game throughout.
Who will become this year’s Poker Player’s Champion? It’ll take five days to find out, but the path to the David “Chip” Reese Trophy begins today.
Past WSOP $50,000 Poker Player’s Champions
| Year | Player | Prize | # of Entrants | Total Prize Pool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Chip Reese | $1,716,000 | 143 | $6,864,000 |
| 2007 | Freddy Deeb | $2,276,832 | 148 | $7,104,000 |
| 2008 | Scotty Nguyen | $1,989,120 | 148 | $7,104,000 |
| 2009 | David Bach | $1,276,806 | 95* | $4,560,000 |
| 2010 | Michael Mizrachi | $1,559,046 | 116 | $5,568,000 |
| 2011 | Brian Rast | $1,720,328 | 128 | $6,144,000 |
*Event was not televised
Action is set to kick off at 5 PM PST, which is about 15 minutes from now. Be sure to join us then as we bring you all the happenings from the 2012 WSOP $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.